Recalling as an antagonist.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

All right. So (very) recently we had a shift where I called the shuttle as the CE/Acting Captain, non antag. The reasoning I gave was that there was an unsecured and unauthorized supermatter shard in the dormitory. Speculatively, I presumed it would be used to singulo, since there was no cooling set up and gas was being pumped in to it, but even if not it was going to explode for sure. So, I called the shuttle, quite legitimately. There was a traitor who had the captain ID, and he came in to the bridge, locked down the bridge so no one could peer in, murdered me, and recalled. In subsequent ahelps, the admin who I was talking to stated they had recalled for the explicit purpose of allowing the SM to go boom first. I said I felt this was obviously against the rules. To quote the MOTD:

"Lots of us like a good traitor round, but remember to avoid recalling shuttles as an antagonist
if the station is in clear disrepair, most players want to leave, etc. The rounds of other players are
just as important as yours. Be a good sport!"

And I was told if the singulo had already been in existence, or the explosion had already happened, it would have been a rule breach, but recalling to maximize damage first was fine, especially since they themself got the shuttle called after the singularity popped.

So, a couple questions:

1. Should there be a difference between harm that has occurred, and harm that will 99% almost definitely occur in the near future, when it comes to recalling as an antagonist?
2. Is recalling to maximize damage first actually okay? Does it matter whether or not you intend to call shuttle yourself after? What if you get killed after the damage you intended to inflict occurs, but before you can call the shuttle again, in a case like this where you killed the other person who could call the shuttle?
3. Can this be added to the actual Rules instead of just in the MOTD?

[Timberpoes]

Dealing with players recalling the shuttle, regardless of antag status, falls under Rule 0 "Admins are also allowed to intervene in rounds when it is in the best interest of the playerbase."

Rule 0 Precedents:

Admins have intervened before and will do so again in situations where a player, regardless of antag status:
has repeatedly delayed round-end by recalling the shuttle when most other players are dead or want to leave

It's an individual admin judgment call, noting that when antags specifically are recalling to maximise bodycount it can lead to noticable drops in player count for subsequent shifts.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Dealing with players recalling the shuttle, regardless of antag status, falls under Rule 0 "Admins are also allowed to intervene in rounds when it is in the best interest of the playerbase."

Rule 0 Precedents:

Admins have intervened before and will do so again in situations where a player, regardless of antag status:
has repeatedly delayed round-end by recalling the shuttle when most other players are dead or want to leave

It's an individual admin judgment call, noting that when antags specifically are recalling to maximise bodycount it can lead to noticable drops in player count for subsequent shifts.

Okay so can we please make it a new policy that you cant recall with the explicit express purpose of maximizing your body count, since you acknowledge it as harmful?

[Archie700]

Point of fact, the admin who answered was me.

I based my judgement to not intervene or take action against him on three factors:
1. As Timber posted "Admins have intervened before and will do so again in situations where a player, regardless of antag status: has repeatedly delayed round-end by recalling the shuttle when most other players are dead or want to leave". Keyword: repeatedly. At that point in time, the traitor had only recalled the shuttle once after killing you.
2. At that point in time, while it was known that an SM shard was in dorms and delamming, it was not known what it was delamming into to the players. I wanted to at least let the SM delam to give the round a bit of excitement before taking further action. Basically, I let the traitor say "fuck".
3. After some time, the traitor himself called after being told by his subverted AI that the station was fucked and he should leave. So now I can't act.

As for your questions:

1. There is a difference, since past harm and recalls is taken into account when admins are making a judgement call on whether people are delaying round end just to kill or be an ass.
2. Repeatedly recalling to maximize damage is not ok. Recalling first because you want something that causes a lot of damage (sm delam) to happen is fine as long as you don't take more measures to delay the round just for "body buildup".

What if you get killed after the damage you intended to inflict occurs, but before you can call the shuttle again, in a case like this where you killed the other person who could call the shuttle?

We say, "lol, lmao" to the person before we check on whether we should intervene depending on round condition.
3. In my opinion, it's already answered under Rule 0 Precedents that admins will intervene if you repeatedly recall. Extending this into 1 recall is too interventionist in my book.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Point of fact, the admin who answered was me.

I based my judgement to not intervene or take action against him on three factors:
1. As Timber posted "Admins have intervened before and will do so again in situations where a player, regardless of antag status: has repeatedly delayed round-end by recalling the shuttle when most other players are dead or want to leave". Keyword: repeatedly. At that point in time, the traitor had only recalled the shuttle once after killing you.
2. At that point in time, while it was known that an SM shard was in dorms and delamming, it was not known what it was delamming into to the players. I wanted to at least let the SM delam to give the round a bit of excitement before taking further action. Basically, I let the traitor say "fuck".
3. After some time, the traitor himself called after being told by his subverted AI that the station was fucked and he should leave. So now I can't act.

As for your questions:

1. There is a difference, since past harm and recalls is taken into account when admins are making a judgement call on whether people are delaying round end just to kill or be an ass.
2. Repeatedly recalling to maximize damage is not ok. Recalling first because you want something that causes a lot of damage (sm delam) to happen is fine as long as you don't take more measures to delay the round just for "body buildup".

What if you get killed after the damage you intended to inflict occurs, but before you can call the shuttle again, in a case like this where you killed the other person who could call the shuttle?

We say, "lol, lmao" to the person before we check on whether we should intervene depending on round condition.
3. In my opinion, it's already answered under Rule 0 Precedents that admins will intervene if you repeatedly recall. Extending this into 1 recall is too interventionist in my book.

Don't you think it's a bit silly to emphasize the "repeated" or "multiple" recalls bit when, in the shift in question, I was the only other person who could have reasonably called the shuttle, since the AI was subverted and would not have called the shuttle against the orders of his master?

Like yeah no shit he didnt recall multiple times, no one else could call due to his actions.

[Archie700]

Don't you think it's a bit silly to emphasize the "repeated" or "multiple" recalls bit when, in the shift in question, I was the only other person who could have reasonably called the shuttle, since the AI was subverted and would not have called the shuttle against the orders of his master?

Like yeah no shit he didnt recall multiple times, no one else could call due to his actions.

I was already watching him while handling your ahelp. If he didn't call the shuttle within 15 minutes from the delamination, I would have sent a centcom message gently prodding people that there is a big singularity and it would be wise to leave now.

If he didn't call 10 minutes after that, then I would have sent another message and forced a call, then base further actions on whether he recalled that one or not.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Don't you think it's a bit silly to emphasize the "repeated" or "multiple" recalls bit when, in the shift in question, I was the only other person who could have reasonably called the shuttle, since the AI was subverted and would not have called the shuttle against the orders of his master?

Like yeah no shit he didnt recall multiple times, no one else could call due to his actions.

I was already watching him while handling your ahelp. If he didn't call the shuttle within 15 minutes from the delamination, I would have sent a centcom message gently prodding people that there is a big singularity and it would be wise to leave now.

If he didn't call 10 minutes after that, then I would have sent another message and forced a call, then base further actions on whether he recalled that one or not.

That's fine for when we have an admin like you babysitting a shift to ensure that a shuttle call happens, but that simply isn't the case most of the time on Sybil, especially when I usually play, which is 5-15 deadpop during off hours. Most of the time we rely on the rules and ahelps to supportmins on discord.

I don't think a policy that relies on having admins babysitting us at all times is a good policy.

[Archie700]

Don't you think it's a bit silly to emphasize the "repeated" or "multiple" recalls bit when, in the shift in question, I was the only other person who could have reasonably called the shuttle, since the AI was subverted and would not have called the shuttle against the orders of his master?

Like yeah no shit he didnt recall multiple times, no one else could call due to his actions.

I was already watching him while handling your ahelp. If he didn't call the shuttle within 15 minutes from the delamination, I would have sent a centcom message gently prodding people that there is a big singularity and it would be wise to leave now.

If he didn't call 10 minutes after that, then I would have sent another message and forced a call, then base further actions on whether he recalled that one or not.

That's fine for when we have an admin like you babysitting a shift to ensure that a shuttle call happens, but that simply isn't the case most of the time on Sybil, especially when I usually play, which is 5-15 deadpop during off hours. Most of the time we rely on the rules and ahelps to supportmins on discord.

I don't think a policy that relies on having admins babysitting us at all times is a good policy.

This is why we need cross-server admins, especially Terry admins to come on Sybil and help out. I don't believe the server culture is THAT distinct, given Terry and Sybil are both LRP and fall under the same rules.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Don't you think it's a bit silly to emphasize the "repeated" or "multiple" recalls bit when, in the shift in question, I was the only other person who could have reasonably called the shuttle, since the AI was subverted and would not have called the shuttle against the orders of his master?

Like yeah no shit he didnt recall multiple times, no one else could call due to his actions.

I was already watching him while handling your ahelp. If he didn't call the shuttle within 15 minutes from the delamination, I would have sent a centcom message gently prodding people that there is a big singularity and it would be wise to leave now.

If he didn't call 10 minutes after that, then I would have sent another message and forced a call, then base further actions on whether he recalled that one or not.

That's fine for when we have an admin like you babysitting a shift to ensure that a shuttle call happens, but that simply isn't the case most of the time on Sybil, especially when I usually play, which is 5-15 deadpop during off hours. Most of the time we rely on the rules and ahelps to supportmins on discord.

I don't think a policy that relies on having admins babysitting us at all times is a good policy.

This is why we need cross-server admins, especially Terry admins to come on Sybil and help out. I don't believe the server culture is THAT distinct, given Terry and Sybil are both LRP and fall under the same rules.

I agree. Now, until that happens, can we make recalling the shuttle for the express purpose of maximizing killcount against the rules, please?

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

To clarify:

I am not asking the policy to be recalling as an antagonist is never allowed. IF you want to recall as a traitor to greentext your objectives? Sure! You want to recall because there was a stupid as fuck call reason like "There is a broken window in hydroponics"? Go for it!

I specifically only think that the shuttle being recalled for the explicit, express purpose of maximizing killcount is extremely toxic and should be against the rules. It's very selfish behavior, and harmful to server population as Timber noted earlier.

I do not believe the current policy of admin discretion is sufficient because when I play, we simply do not have admins most of the time.

[Screemonster]

Don't you think it's a bit silly to emphasize the "repeated" or "multiple" recalls bit when, in the shift in question, I was the only other person who could have reasonably called the shuttle, since the AI was subverted and would not have called the shuttle against the orders of his master?

Like yeah no shit he didnt recall multiple times, no one else could call due to his actions.

I was already watching him while handling your ahelp. If he didn't call the shuttle within 15 minutes from the delamination, I would have sent a centcom message gently prodding people that there is a big singularity and it would be wise to leave now.

If he didn't call 10 minutes after that, then I would have sent another message and forced a call, then base further actions on whether he recalled that one or not.

That's fine for when we have an admin like you babysitting a shift to ensure that a shuttle call happens, but that simply isn't the case most of the time on Sybil, especially when I usually play, which is 5-15 deadpop during off hours. Most of the time we rely on the rules and ahelps to supportmins on discord.

I don't think a policy that relies on having admins babysitting us at all times is a good policy.

This is why we need cross-server admins, especially Terry admins to come on Sybil and help out. I don't believe the server culture is THAT distinct, given Terry and Sybil are both LRP and fall under the same rules.

I agree. Now, until that happens, can we make recalling the shuttle for the express purpose of maximizing killcount against the rules, please?

"Here's a highly specific situation, let's make a broad policy ruling based on it divorced of that context" is a terrible way to make policy.

[The Wrench]

We don’t need policy for this, it’s already against the rules.

[Vekter]

Dealing with players recalling the shuttle, regardless of antag status, falls under Rule 0 "Admins are also allowed to intervene in rounds when it is in the best interest of the playerbase."

Rule 0 Precedents:

Admins have intervened before and will do so again in situations where a player, regardless of antag status:
has repeatedly delayed round-end by recalling the shuttle when most other players are dead or want to leave

It's an individual admin judgment call, noting that when antags specifically are recalling to maximise bodycount it can lead to noticable drops in player count for subsequent shifts.

Okay so can we please make it a new policy that you cant recall with the explicit express purpose of maximizing your body count, since you acknowledge it as harmful?

1) This is already policy, or if it isn't, it's treated as such by most admins. I have regularly seen other admins ask antags why they are recalling the shuttle and note them for doing so if their reasoning is poor.
2) I remember this round because Archie asked us for feedback on it. They told me that there were 19 alive players and 4 dead at the time with the round lasting just around 90 minutes. I would not personally consider recalling the shuttle in this case to be outside of normal expectations so I wouldn't have even questioned why the antag had done so.

While I appreciate that you were likely dead and ready for the round to end, it doesn't sound like a situation where an admin would need to step in unless further steps were taken by the antag in question.

Additionally, if it's extremely clear that an antag is only recalling to increase their body count, ie they are killing people who are trying to call the shuttle or have recalled more than once, you can urgent adminhelp that as it would be considered grief. You can also just come on the Discord and ping us for help.

E: I'll humor you and answer your questions from the OP:

1. Should there be a difference between harm that has occurred, and harm that will 99% almost definitely occur in the near future, when it comes to recalling as an antagonist? - Yes, because if the harm hasn't actually occurred, we can't assume that it will. Additionally, not every situation will be the same and if the antag in question is very clearly holding up a crew that explicitly wants to IMMEDIATELY LEAVE, then we can step in. That didn't seem to be the case in the round you are talking about.
2. Is recalling to maximize damage first actually okay? Does it matter whether or not you intend to call shuttle yourself after? What if you get killed after the damage you intended to inflict occurs, but before you can call the shuttle again, in a case like this where you killed the other person who could call the shuttle? - I think this is perfectly fine to do maybe once, but if you're actively preventing people from calling the shuttle or recalling it multiple times, it's an issue we should step in on. The other parts of this question are irrelevant because if nobody is left to actually call the shuttle then we would need to handle the matter anyway or a restart vote could be used to reboot.
3. Can this be added to the actual Rules instead of just in the MOTD? - No, because it's already in the rules as a rule 0 precedent, it doesn't happen enough to be a major issue, and when it does we have historically stepped in to deal with the issue either from an IC standpoint (forcing a shuttle call without being able to recall it) or an administrative one (noting people who abuse recalls to increase body count). Adding it to the rules would increase our already extremely wordy rules for no real net benefit.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Additionally, if it's extremely clear that an antag is only recalling to increase their body count, ie they are killing people who are trying to call the shuttle or have recalled more than once, you can urgent adminhelp that as it would be considered grief. You can also just come on the Discord and ping us for help.

If I can get any headmin to confirm this, we can consider this thread wrapped up and close it.

[Vekter]

Additionally, if it's extremely clear that an antag is only recalling to increase their body count, ie they are killing people who are trying to call the shuttle or have recalled more than once, you can urgent adminhelp that as it would be considered grief. You can also just come on the Discord and ping us for help.

If I can get any headmin to confirm this, we can consider this thread wrapped up and close it.

This would be covered under rule 1, why do you need a special exception from headmins to be allowed to do it?

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Additionally, if it's extremely clear that an antag is only recalling to increase their body count, ie they are killing people who are trying to call the shuttle or have recalled more than once, you can urgent adminhelp that as it would be considered grief. You can also just come on the Discord and ping us for help.

If I can get any headmin to confirm this, we can consider this thread wrapped up and close it.

This would be covered under rule 1, why do you need a special exception from headmins to be allowed to do it?

Just want to make sure everything is covered.

If this is existing policy and no one will take issue with it, and I won't get yelled at for urgent ahelping this, as that is required to do on Sybil when I normally play, as you well know considering you handle most of them, then one of the headmins should have no problem popping in to say "Yep, that's policy, happy we could clarify."

[Timberpoes]

It's already in the rules as a power admins have. No ruling is necessary.

We're not going to force admins to enforce it like they have an entire arboretum lodged up their arses, either.

The same old adage applies; we shouldn't let the rules get in the way of a good story. It is a discretion to be pulled when the admin thinks it's in the best interests of the server, and it will remain so. You can inform the admin team that recall spam is happening and they'll investigate, but they have a discretion to allow it or prevent it and it's highly unlikely the headmin team will look past the curtains of their decision unless it's beyond any reasonable doubt that the admin fucked up and should have prevented recall spam.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

It's already in the rules as a power admins have. No ruling is necessary.

We're not going to force admins to enforce it like they have an entire arboretum lodged up their arses, either.

The same old adage applies; we shouldn't let the rules get in the way of a good story. It is a discretion to be pulled when the admin thinks it's in the best interests of the server, and it will remain so. You can inform the admin team that recall spam is happening and they'll investigate, but they have a discretion to allow it or prevent it and it's highly unlikely the headmin team will look past the curtains of their decision unless it's beyond any reasonable doubt that the admin fucked up and should have prevented recall spam.

All right. Sounds good. I'm satisfied with your response, feel free to close and archive the thread unless you feel there is more discussion to be had on the topic.

[Arianya]

Closing per OP's request and with a headmin ruling of:

It's already in the rules as a power admins have. No ruling is necessary.

Headmin's feel free to re-open/add to if needed.